Oof. Just when you think we’re going to be the next NBA champions/greatest team of all time/first basketball team in space, the Timberwolves get all Timberwolfy and lose two in a row.

A friend of mine scored free tickets in Row E up front for us, so I got to see our stomping with my very own eyes. In a game where Andrew Bogut and Stephen Curry both played limited minutes, from foul trouble and a minor injury respectively, we should have been able to capitalize and cruise to a victory. But the Golden State Warriors are good. They are really, really good. Klay Thompson was a killer. He scored 30 points on us, mostly on three point shots from out in the First Ave parking lot. He looks so cocky too, flappin’ his arms around after each shot. Luckily, I saw an interview with his dad, who said that he controls all his son’s finances so he won’t go broke and only gives him a small allowance each month. After a stinging loss like this, it gives me solace to know that Klay Thompson might be out there begging teammate Harrison Barnes for $10 so he can see “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2.” Keep pumping that lemonade stand, Klay, you’ll get that new Huffy someday!

Klay Thompson, a grown man who doesn’t control his own money, shoots probably his closest shot of the night, presumably with his dad’s permission. Photo by Mike Brody.

I still had fun at the game, even with the crappy loss. My favorite part was the weird Bushwacker dudes that were sitting next to us. They screamed and hooted and shrieked ear-piercing cries on nearly every play. I loved it. Who didn’t love it, though, were the fuddy-duddy old dudes in the row in front of us, who seemingly accidentally showed up early for the Donny & Marie Christmas. They plugged their ears with their fingers and turned around every five minutes to shoot daggers with their eyes. All they needed were monocles, top-hats and a little Monopoly dog in their arms to come off more like douchey, blue-blooded hurumpfers. Frickin’ Minnesotans. We’re so damn Norwegian that we can’t even make noise at a sporting event.

Crunch meets the Bushwackers. Photo by Mike Brody.

Next up, we play the Dallas Mavericks at home. If we win, we’ll be 4-2 and sitting in a pretty decent position. If we lose, we fall to 3-3 and things begin to get a little panicky. We need a big game from Pek about now, so somebody punch a map of Montenegro in front of him and piss him off. Go Wolves!

Yeah, “we.” Don’t give me any of this jibberjabber about how fans can’t say “we” when their team wins. Especially when you live in a cold-ass town like Minneapolis. And yeah, I get that I didn’t throw an alley-oop to Andrei Kirilenko on Saturday. I’m not a moron. And I didn’t dance the Oppan Gangnam Style for an hour for a Klondike Bar like that poor son of a bitch at the game. (Dude, you know those things cost like $2, right?) What I did do is sit through practically a decade of god-awful basketball to get here. I earned it. We all did.

I had 18th row seats to the game, which is the closest I’ve ever been without sneaking in. One of the weird things about being at a Timberwolves’ game is, you feel strangely out of touch. Ricky Rubio didn’t play last night because of back spasms, but the Target Center is a cave and gets crappy cell phone reception so I never found out until the third quarter. My friend and I kept theorizing about why Adelman wasn’t playing Rubio. “Do you think he’s sitting him the whole first half so he could play the entire second half? Is his beard not up to par?”

Saturday also marked the return of former Timberwolf Michael Beasley. He played ten minutes and shot 1-8 for two points. If I were B-Easy I’d be clipping coupons right now because his career ain’t looking so hot. Remember a few years back when the big debate was “Who should be the #1 draft pick: Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley?” That was a real thing. Today that makes about as much sense as “Would you rather receive an hour-long Swedish massage or have army ants crawl up your butt-crack?” Another former Wolf from last year, Wes Johnson, didn’t fare much better. He just sat there with his creepy Stepford Wife smile and zero minutes.

I actually feel bad for those guys. They got absolutely no fanfare on their first return to the Target Center. I feel like they deserved at least something, so I wrote them a haiku:

Oh, Wes and Beas
Maybe it’s time to try golf?
You’re not good at this

So that’s it for the Wolves for the rest of the year. We’ll see everybody again in 2013! Hopefully our Puppies will make a resolution to make their free throws and never get injured ever again.

And I don’t mean that for the usual reasons like it’s reputation as Chicago’s scurvy, malnourished younger brother. Or that it smells like cabbage floating at the bottom of a beer keg tub.

I feel bad for Milwaukee because the Bucks haven’t been relevant in years. The last time Bucks had a truly great team, NBA players still had afros and wore coke-spoons around their neck. Women actually wanted to have sex with Three Dog Night.

Yeah, the Timberwolves have been lousy for most of our existence too, but at least we’ve been pretty steadily horrible. I’d much rather suck with a vengeance than be floating just below .500 year after year. It doesn’t hurt as much when you’ve given up hope.

All I can say is thank god we didn’t nuke the Russians back in the day, because the Soviets have been our saviors this season. Last night, Russian twink Alexey Shved scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, leading us to a much needed win. This was on a night where the other half of the Russian Super-Friends, Andrei Kirilenko, was out for the second game in a row and Kevin Love almost missed the game due to a tummy-wummy ache in his belly-welly. Because of Shved’s late game heroics, we are now 7-8 and have the potential to have a decent record when Ricky Rubio returns in a few weeks.

Despite dressing like a 12-year-old Japanese girl, Alexey Shved has been a key contributor this year. Photo from myfoxtwincities.com

I’m not the only one who may be overly excited about our playoff prospects. Those of you who watched the game on Fox Sports North may have noticed that they’ve been advertising the Target Center this year with the slogan “Watch the Timberwolves return a playoff atmosphere to the Target Center.” What a pussy-footed way of trying to create hype.

“Hey, hey, we never said they’d make the playoffs. We just said it’d be like a playoff atmosphere. You know, dim the lights, light some candles. Play some Jock Jams in the back. Eat a salad out of a halved basketball. Just a real nice playoff atmosphere.”

It was fascinating to watch them change their commercials depending on our laundry list of injuries each week: